Through the years since the quarter finals exit of the World Cup 2015,England cricket team underwent a monstrous way in the approach of playing modern day cricket. This change resulted the players coming up in future to represent England in any form of cricket to be fearless irrespective of the win loss ratio in the modern day changing dynamics of cricket. This fearless approach rather made England team Champions in 2019 Cricket World Cup and World T20 in Australia 2022.One such bright aspect in the ever fearless batting line up was wicket keeper batter Phil Salt.
After two games of this series England seemed in a downfall of sorts. They had followed defeat in the preceding one‑day internationals by losing the first two games in the shorter format, and confidence appeared to have dropped dangerously. What has happened since then has been nothing so easy as a simple shift of momentum, it has been a complete and fundamental redefinition. And having ripped up the form book, England set about shredding the history books as well.
Once again was a team to strike terror into opponents. England have spoken of using this tour to learn about local conditions, and on this night their batters mastered them. Phil Salt scored a brilliant 119, with Jos Buttler and Liam Livingstone adding 50s, and having been put in to bat they scored a frankly ludicrous 267 for three, the kind of mountainous total that forces chasing teams to take unsustainable risks. No side could be better suited to the task than this West Indies team, but for all that they could do could only salvage a 75 runs defeat.
Phil Salt in a beast mode
Earlier on Tuesday Salt was unsold in the Indian Premier League auction, which seemed puzzling at the time and became even more so with every punishing, perfectly timed swing of his bat. Salt’s role in the side is to set the tone, and on this occasion he did it by hitting the debutant Matthew Forde for six and four off successive deliveries in the first over.
By the time he got out, having faced just 57 balls, only nine remained and England already had 246. He scored 88 runs in boundaries alone, giving fielders little to do except watch the ball whistle above or beyond their reach before turning to collect it.
If the experiment with also asking him to keep wicket was not an overwhelming success, Salt’s place at the top of England’s batting order can no longer be in doubt. In their past two matches England have produced two of the six biggest opening partnerships in their 182-game T20 history, Salt and Buttler combining to score 115 on Saturday followed by 117 here.
There were no takers for Phil Salt in the IPL 2024 Auction The England keeper-batter had a base price of ₹1.5 crore but none of the 10 franchises showed interest in him. This, however, had no impact on Salt’s performance. If anything, it acted as an added motivation to do better. And boy did he do well.
Salt had hit an unbeaten ton in England’s victory in Grenada on Saturday and carried on where he left off, taking the attack to the hosts from the outset in emphatic fashion after Salt was finally bowled by Andre Russell in the penultimate over after striking ten sixes and seven fours in his entertaining innings — the highest score by an Englishman in T20 internationals 119 surpassing his own countryman Alex Hales 116 vs Sri Lanka
Salt’s incredible form rises well for England’s hopes in June’s T20 World Cup, which will be hosted in the Caribbean and the United States, and he said he was relishing playing in the region.
“I’m definitely enjoying it. It’s a cool place to tour,” he said. “The boys have produced the goods in the last couple of games and now we’ve got a decider to look forward to.”
Salt credited his surge in form to a changed approach to the game.
“It’s very satisfying. The tweaks that I’ve made to my game in the last six months from a mental approach point of view… it’s good that I’m seeing the rewards now,” he added.
England now enters into the deciding match of series tied level with West Indies 2-2 and hopes that Salt’s healthy rich form continues in that match as well.